Before the storm - Casino Resort, NSW

The following is a true account of what happened to us at Kyffins Reserve Lake Mulwala, NSW on March 21, 2013. Kyffins Reserve is an area about 80 hectares, give or take a few acres, and is set up for self-contained vehicle camping with lots of huge eucalyptus trees of two or three metres in diameter.

On Thursday March 21, we were at Kyffins Reserve Lake Mulwala in our 2001 Winnebago Alpine named Bugawork. It was 7:30pm, thunder had been rumbling for about 15 minutes and we were expecting a storm but little, or no, rain.

My 72 year old wife Eileen and I were sitting on the settee, watching TV and having a few quiet ones. Bella, our staffy, was pretending to be asleep as she doesn’t like thunder. The sky looked a funny colour, the clouds were purple and yellow, going around in a circle and getting bigger; the centre looked like an eye. I watched for a while, still the thunder rumbled and the lightning flashed in and out of the clouds.

Mick and Eileen

I didn’t like the look of the sky so I turned off the two, nine kilogram gas bottles, went inside, closed the door, windows and hatches, and turned off the TV and inverter. This was the first time I had done this in the nine years that we had been on the road. We were on the settee when off in the distance small branches appeared to break off the trees and float away. About three seconds later there was a terrible roar of wind, we had never heard anything like it before, and suddenly great huge gum trees were going in all directions. Eileen screamed as a big tree came towards us and hit the Mazda T4600 cab of the vehicle.

Then there was this almighty loud ‘boom!’ The motorhome appeared to fill with fog or mist and we fell unconscious. This was a tornado and not just an ordinary one, for us it was a double header with one travelling west to east and the other coming across the Lake travelling south to north. When they hit we were in the middle - we were in the eye of 254 kilometre / hour winds.

It was 7:55pm when we came to; we had been out for 20 to 25 minutes. I looked at Eileen and asked what happened. Neither of us knew. I looked around the inside of the motorhome, it was gutted, everything was smashed to bits, and the overhead cupboards made from Tasmanian black wood were reduced to pieces. We had a 12v full size fridge/freezer which was bolted to the floor. The fridge door had been torn off and the freezer door hung by one hinge. The pull out pantry was fully extended and stuck in the ensuite door, the fridge and pantry were empty and the contents splattered from the back of the vehicle to the windscreen, there was tomato sauce and pickles everywhere. The flat screen TV which was bolted to a cabinet had been torn off and was smashed on the floor. God only knows what happened in there. We were told the wind only lasted a couple of minutes but a couple of minutes at 254 kilometres / hour can do a lot of damage.

We were sitting on the settee when all this started and were sitting on the floor on top of the rubble facing the opposite direction when we came to. How did this happen and what sort of force could do this, we wondered? I looked around the motorhome. I was dazed and I couldn’t  work out where the door was to get out. The fridge was hanging by one bolt from the ceiling and the windscreen was in a vertical position. It was then I worked out that we were on our side with the passenger door and entry door were on the ground. I had no shoes, they were under the rubble. I tried to kick the windscreen out but with not a hope, it was like trying to kick an egg up a gun barrel. It was almost dark and I could smell diesel fuel; we had just filled up that day and had 150 litres of diesel and 85 litres of petrol for the generator on board.

We were trapped inside and we couldn’t get in to the ensuite to try to get out the back window. I blew the horn a few times and a guy named Danny Janosevic who was staying about 80 meters away, in a 16 foot pop top, came over and asked, “Are you ok in there?” We told him we were ok but couldn’t get out. He said he’d be back in a minute and returned with a tomahawk. He started laying into the windscreen and told us to watch out for the flying glass. He wasn’t wrong, and finally he cut a gap from the top to the bottom. Eileen had found a couple of pairs of shoes and a torch, so at least we had some light.

I got out and heard Eileen scream as she tried to put on one of her shoes, “I think I have broken my foot.” I told her to shuffle over so I could pull her out; we were leaking diesel and I feared the whole place could go up. She pushed the dog in front of her and I grabbed Bella and tied her to the bull bar with some washing line that was lying about. I got an old blanket and covered the broken glass as much as I could, grabbed Eileen by the shoulders and pulled her out. She was screaming in pain, but I managed to get her safely away from the motorhome as people rushed over to help.

I went over to see how Danny was but his caravan was gone. I wondered how he could have got away as it appeared nobody could get out of there. I called his name and he replied, “Over here.” I made my way over and he was standing beside a pile of rubble about 18 inches high - all that was left of his caravan. It had been picked up, with Danny inside, flung 25 metres away and all he had was a cut on his head. We had been pushed eight metres north.

I looked around; the Reserve looked like ground zero. All the huge gums had been reduced to stumps; there were motorhomes and caravans everywhere. There was machinery trying to clear a track in but it was a big task to move all the trees out of the way. Off in the distance along the Mulwala-Corowa Road we could hear more machinery and there were a lot of red and blue flashing lights. We heard that there was a couple trapped in a caravan with a big tree on top of it and nobody could get to them until a track was cleared. The red and blue flashing lights on the Corowa Road were ambulances trying to get to us. It took them about two hours to get to where we were, only about 200 metres off the bitumen.

The medics had Eileen on a stretcher in traction as they thought she may have a broken neck and ankle, and were worried about her hip. The medic told me to get in as well but I told him I was ok and that there was nothing wrong with me (it’s a man thing). Also, I had the dog to take care of. He told me to get someone to look after the dog and get in the ambulance. Thankfully, Danny said he would look after  Bella. We were in the ambulance with another lady who had a cut to her head. After a few hundred metres we passed Denison County Caravan Park which had been wiped out with 200 caravans and cabins piled on top of each other. Luckily the tornado didn’t come a week later when the area would have been packed with guests for Easter.

We pulled in to Yarrawonga hospital, just over the Lake in Victoria, where there were lots of doctors, nurses and ambulances. Eileen was taken off for x-rays, a nurse grabbed my arm and took me away to be cleaned up. In the hospital light I could see a little better; my hands were covered in blood and still bleeding from the broken windscreen. When she tried to wipe them there were splinters of glass in my hands and fingers and she started pulling them out with a pair of tweezers. There was blood all over my shorts and I looked like I worked in an abattoir. More patients arrived and the nurse said, “Let’s move down out of the way.” I could hardly walk and she asked what was wrong with my legs. I thought I must have something in my shoes. I was wearing runners but no socks, she pulled the runners off my feet and they were full of glass splinters. She started pulling  the glass from my feet and warned me it was going to sting but I think my feet were numb as I didn’t feel a thing. She looked stunned when I told her what had happened at Kyffins Reserve and said we were very lucky after what we had been through.

A doctor arrived and told us we were both going by air ambulance to the Royal Melbourne Hospital; twenty minutes later we were flying the 300 kilometres to Melbourne. I was at the back, Eileen was on the medical bed in traction with a medic beside her, and there was an empty seat in front.

When I looked out the small porthole window into the dark outside, all I could see was what was in my mind, Bugawork lying on her side in the bush, battered and broken. And poor Bella tied up inside, after what she had been through that evening she would have been really scared. It was a short fuse between laughter and tears. An hour and a bit later we landed at Essendon Airport; a helicopter with patients on board had landed just before us. Twenty minutes later we were at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, I thought it was about 1:30am. Eileen was taken to the x-ray department; they feared she had a broken neck. Their fears were correct  and they had to operate the next day. She also had a big lump on the back of her head and they thought that whatever had caused this may have broken her neck. The doctor also said she was very, very lucky and that when I pulled her out of the window by the arms she was only one centimeter away from been paralysed. I had four or five x-rays but nothing was broken, just severe bruising.

A couple of days later the family arrived to take me to Mulwala with a couple of cars and a trailer. First we got Bella and thanked Danny for taking care of her. Wow, what a mess the vehicle was in; we were very lucky to get out alive. Diesel  had leaked everywhere and the State Emergency Service guys asked me how much diesel we’d had on board and told me that the battery was arching. We had 185 litres of diesel, eight batteries plus 85 litres of petrol; he nearly fainted. They got a flat tray truck, pulled Bugawork up on her wheels, cut the batteries out and said everything was now ok.

Eileen said the staff at the Royal Melbourne Hospital were wonderful, as were the staff at Yarrawonga hospital, the ambulance officers, and the State Emergency Service guys. Nobody was allowed into the area unless they were escorted by one of their people and they did a great job alongside the police who patrolled the area.

We’d like to thank our family, Kylie and Sam, for the work and effort they put in. Special thanks must also go to Ken Tame and staff. 

It’s my birthday tomorrow, should I celebrate, or what? It’s not every day we reach 75. Maybe I am lucky, could be the luck of the Irish.

Safe travelling, see you on the track soon.

P.S. Always carry a tomahawk or similar inside your RV, it’s no use having it in a box on the outside if you are trapped on the inside.

Category: Unknown
Written: Sat 01 Jun 2013
Printed: June, 2013
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